AJN Agency.- Technology billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he prevented a Ukrainian attack on a Russian naval base last year by rejecting Kiev’s request to activate Internet access in the Black Sea near Moscow-occupied Crimea.
The Starlink satellite internet service, operated by Musk-owned company SpaceX, has been deployed in Ukraine since shortly after the invasion by Russia in February 2022.
«There was an emergency request from government officials to activate Starlink in Sevastopol. The clear intent was to sink most of Russia’s fleet,” Musk posted on Twitter on Thursday.
The city of Sevastopol is the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
“If I were to agree to their request, SpaceX would clearly be engaging in a gross act of war and escalation of conflict,” Musk said.
Musk was thus reacting to the publication of an excerpt from a biography of the technology giant written by Walter Isaacson.
In an excerpt published Thursday by the Washington Post, Isakson wrote that in September last year, “Ukrainian forces were attempting a covert attack on the Russian naval fleet based in Sevastopol, Crimea, by sending six small unmanned submarines loaded with explosives to the target. Was using Starlink to guide.
Isakson wrote, “Musk spoke with the Russian Ambassador to the United States… (who) told him clearly that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea could provoke a nuclear reaction.”
Musk “secretly told his engineers to disable coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast.” As a result, when Ukrainian unmanned submarines approached the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and harmlessly came ashore,” according to Isakson.
Musk refuted Isakson’s version in another post on Thursday.
«The Starlink sectors in question were not active. “SpaceX did not deactivate anything,” Musk posted.
Former Russian President and top security official Dmitry Medvedev praised Musk in response to Isakson’s description of the incident.
“(Musk) was worried about a retaliatory nuclear strike,” Medvedev posted on Twitter on Thursday.
“If what Isakson writes in his book is true, then it seems that Musk is the last suitable mind in North America.” Or, at least, in gender-neutral America, he has balls.
Musk also called for a ceasefire in the fighting on Thursday.
“Both sides should agree on a ceasefire.” With each passing day, more and more young Ukrainians and Russians are dying to gain and lose small pieces of land whose borders barely change. This is not worth their lives,” he posted.